The question of whether there exists such a thing as an objectively perfect work of art remains the stuff of artistic scholarship and debates, but one particular artist feels they’ve cracked the question of how to improve a time-honored masterpiece — by adding in a number of Apple products.
The famous Macintosh Picasso logo was developed for the introduction of the original 128k Mac back in 1984. A minimalist line drawing in the style of Pablo Picasso, this whimsical graphic implied the whole of a computer in a few simple strokes. It was an icon of what was inside the box, and became as famous as the computer it represented.
The logo was designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado, art directors on the Mac development team. Originally the logo was to be a different concept called The Macintosh Spirit by artist Jean-Michel Folon, but before the release Steve Jobs changed his mind and had it replaced by the simple and colorful drawing by Hughes and Casado. It’s been beloved ever since, and the graphic style has endured across decades.
Apple is finally preparing high resolution graphics for its online store to accommodate the Retina displays on the new iPad and the next-generation MacBook Pro. Although the Cupertino company has already overhauled most of its website, the online store still includes plenty of old graphics that appear fuzzy on its latest devices. But not for long.
In an email sent out to iOS developers today, Apple has announced a new rule that requires all apps to be submitted for approval with high resolution 1024 x 1024 icons and artwork. That’s a higher resolution than the display built into the iPad 2 — for an icon.
We’re huge fans of Readdle’s productivity apps here at Cult of Mac, and we’re delighted that they’re getting ready for the new iPad’s Retina display. Remarks and PDF Expert will be Readdle’s first two apps to get high-resolution artwork in their latest updates, in addition to a number of new features.
James Thomson, developer of esteemed iOS calculator PCalc, posted an interesting image on Twitter earlier today.
He mentioned that he was working on iPad Retina artwork – “just in case” – and the results were, well, big.
The image above has been resized to 640 pixels to fit inside Cult of Mac’s layout, so make sure you click here to see the original at full size.
Chances are James isn’t the only iOS developer trying out a little Retina-scale artwork at the moment. There’s still nothing official from Apple, but speculation about the likely resolution of the iPad 3 screen is hotting up since last week’s MacRumors story that claimed to confirm the device’s resolution at 2048×1536.
Apple has been introducing high-resolution artwork in preparation for Retina Display Macs since last July, when the company released OS X Lion. And it continues to do so, with artwork from its new Messages beta available at double its normal size.
